Exercise and strengthening of muscles is very important to the maintenance of health. Many people who are sick and bedridden or generally more sedentary lose muscle tone, which leads into a cycle of further loss of muscle strength. Even people who are not bedridden or sedentary often require regular exercise therapy to strengthen muscles to address ongoing maladies such as back pain. Sometimes it is necessary for people to perform exercises first thing in the morning right after waking up and even before getting out of bed to allow them to become mobile. Furthermore, many people are unable or do not have the time to go to a gym and are more likely to have the time to exercise and would prefer to exercise at home.
Home exercise equipment, however, poses many issues. Very often people do not have the space in their abode to accommodate the exercise equipment. In order to address this issue, equipment often is folded away in some manner to be put out of sight under a bed or in a closet or to stand unobtrusively against a wall. However, this equipment is not easily brought out and set up by someone who is sick and bedridden or has very low muscle tone. Moreover, the unobtrusiveness of the equipment is also not conductive to encouraging regular use.
In order to address this issue, others have devised exercise equipment to be used in a bed. Very often, due to the type of exercise that the equipment needs to provide, the exercise equipment must be braced in some manner against the bed structure. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,820,519 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,820,532 disclose exercise equipment that is clamped to the upper portion of a headboard or is braced with some kind of horizontal member or board extending under the mattress. However, equipment that is clamped against the upper portion of a headboard may cause damage to the headboard. Moreover, it puts a high torque force on the upper part of the headboard or footboard when used, and thereby applies excessive force to the attachments of the headboard or footboard. This type of equipment is also usually very unsightly, and is difficult to repeatedly remove and attach. Equipment that is braced under the mattress applies a force to the mattress or box-spring below the mattress that it is not designed to withstand. Furthermore, the horizontal member or board will push up on the mattress and make the mattress lumpy and uneven to sleep on. It is also difficult to install and remove the horizontal member, because a person must lift up the mattress to do so. Also, if left in place, this type of exercise equipment is unsightly as well. Others, such as U.S. Pat. No. 1,561,979 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,218,067, show headboards and/or footboards with built-in exercise equipment. However, such headboards and footboards with built-in exercise equipment can be bulky, very expensive, and are not easily reconfigurable.